As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

Tides

High:12:26am/12:24pm

Low:6:10am/6:23pm

Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)

This Year:14.59

Last Year:7.37

Normal To Date:19.56

Annual Seasonal Average:23.80

Holidays

Johnny Appleseed Day

Middle Name Pride Day

South by Southwest (SXSW)

Turkey Vultures Return to the Living Sign

National Oatmeal-Nut Waffle Day

Commonwealth Day-Vanuatu

Statehood Day-Lithuania

On This Day In …

0537 --- The Goths began their siege on Rome.

1320 --- The characters Romeo and Juliet were married this day according to William Shakespeare.

1791 --- Samuel Mulliken of Philadelphia, PA became the first person to receive more than one patent from the U.S. Patent Office. Four patents were issued for his machines: (1) to thresh corn and grain, (2) to break and swingle hemp, (3) to cut polished marble, and (4) to raise the nap on cloths.

1818 --- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is published. The book, by 21-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the world's first science fiction novel. In Shelley's tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. Cruelly rejected by its creator, it wanders, seeking companionship and becoming increasingly brutal as it fails to find a mate. Mary Shelley created the story on a rainy afternoon in 1816 in Geneva, where she was staying with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron. Byron proposed they each write a gothic ghost story, but only Mary Shelley completed hers.

1888 --- One of the worst blizzards in American history strikes the Northeast, killing more than 400 people and dumping as much as 55 inches of snow in some areas. New York City ground to a near halt in the face of massive snow drifts and powerful winds from the storm. At the time, approximately one in every four Americans lived in the area between Washington D.C. and Maine, the area affected by the Great Blizzard of 1888.

1905 --- The Parisian subway was officially inaugurated.

1927 --- Samuel Roxy Rothafel opened the famous Roxy Theatre in New York City. The showplace was indeed a palace. It cost $10,000,000 to build and held 6,200 theatregoers. The Roxy truly was part of the ‘golden age of the movie palace’. The screen was 18-feet by 22-feet. The first feature shown at the Roxy was The Loves of Sunya, starring Gloria Swanson and John Boles.

1941 --- President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program, which provides money and materials for allies in the war, goes into effect. The Lend-Lease program was devised by Roosevelt as a means of aiding Great Britain in its war effort against the Germans, by giving the chief executive the power to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of" any military resources the president deemed ultimately in the interest of the defense of the United States. The reasoning was that if a neighbor was successful in defending his home, the security of your home would be enhanced. It also served to bolster British morale by giving them the sense that they were no longer alone in their struggle against Hitler. The program was finally authorized by Congress and signed into effect on March 11, 1941. By November, after much heated debate, Congress extended the terms of Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union, even though the USSR had already been the recipient of American military weapons and had been promised $1 billion in financial aid. By the end of the war, more than $50 billion in funds, weapons, aircraft, and ships had been distributed to 44 countries. After the war, the Lend-Lease program morphed into the Marshall Plan, which allocated funds for the revitalization of "friendly" democratic nations-even if they were former enemies.

1948 --- Reginald Weir became the first black tennis player to participate in a U.S. Indoor Lawn Tennis Association tournament.

1968 --- Otis Redding posthumously received a gold record for the single, (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay. Redding was killed in a plane crash in Lake Monona in Madison, WI on December 10, 1967. He recorded 11 charted hit songs between 1965 and 1969. Otis Redding was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

1986 --- Popsicle announced its plan to end the traditional twin-stick frozen treat for a one-stick model.

1990 --- Lithuania proclaims its independence from the USSR, the first Soviet republic to do so. The Soviet government responded by imposing an oil embargo and economic blockade against the Baltic republic, and later sent troops. Lithuanians have lived along the Nemen River and the Baltic Sea for some 3,000 years, and during the medieval period Lithuania was one of the largest states in Europe, stretching from present-day European Russia to as far as the Black Sea. In the late 14th century, Lithuania united with Poland in forming a commonwealth, and with the third partition of Poland in 1795, Lithuania was absorbed into Russia. In the 19th century, a Lithuanian linguistic and cultural revival began, and with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Levost between Russia and Germany in 1918, Lithuania achieved independence. For the next two decades, however, Poland, Germany, and the USSR all interfered with Lithuania's affairs. In 1940, Soviet forces occupied the country, but in 1941 the Nazis replaced them. During World War II, many Lithuanians fought alongside the Germans against the Soviet Union, but by 1944 the country was liberated and a pro-Soviet communist regime was installed. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or "openness," led Lithuania to reassert its identity, and on March 11, 1990, formal independence was proclaimed. Sajudis, a non-communist coalition established in 1988, subsequently won control of the Lithuanian parliament and Vytautas Landsbergis became Lithuania's first post-Soviet head of state. In January 1991, Soviet paratroopers and tanks invaded Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, beginning a standoff that lasted until September 6, 1991, when the crumbling Soviet Union agreed to grant independence to Lithuania and the other Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia.

1993 --- Janet Reno was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the nation's first female attorney general.

1997 --- Paul McCartney, a former member of the most successful rock band in history, The Beatles, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his "services to music." The 54-year-old lad from Liverpool became Sir Paul in a centuries-old ceremony of pomp and solemnity at Buckingham Palace in central London. Fans waited outside in a scene reminiscent of Beatlemania of the 1960s. Crowds screamed as McCartney swept through the gates in his chauffeur-driven limousine and he answered with a thumbs-up. As for the surviving Beatles, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, Sir Paul said that since they learned that he would be knighted, "They call me 'Your Holiness.'" McCartney dedicated his knighthood to fellow Beatles George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon and the people of the northwestern port of Liverpool.

1998 --- The International Astronomical Union issued an alert that said that a mile-wide asteroid could come very close to, and possibly hit, Earth on Oct. 26, 2028. The next day NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that there was no chance the asteroid would hit Earth.

2004 --- Ten bombs exploded in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 2,000 in an attack linked to al-Qaida-inspired militants.

2009 --- The Toyota Motor Company announces on this day in 2009 that it has sold over 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in the U.S. under its six Toyota and Lexus brands. The sales were led by the Prius, the world's first mass-market hybrid car, which was launched in Japan in October 1997 and introduced in America in July 2000.

2011 --- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a measure to eliminate most union rights for public employees, a proposal which had provoked three weeks of protests.